Torii Hunter Meets With Scioscia

With all of the closed door meetings Mike Scioscia has been having, I don’t know how he finds time fill out a different lineup card every day. It was Torii Hunter in the manager’s office for a requested meeting on Thursday.

While not all of the details from the closed-door-er(?) were available, it is clear Hunter wants to get Mark Trumbo‘s bat into the lineup more, even if it costs Hunter time in the outfield. My source also believes Hunter was trying to get Scioscia’s discount at Howard’s Appliances for that new dishwasher/plasma TV combo that’s all the rage.

Trumbo hasn’t been in the lineup much because of a current illness and general lack of position. The third base experiment didn’t get off to a great start with three errors in two games and just a total of three starts at the hot corner. Trumbo is hitting .375/.474/.750 with two home runs in his enormous 19 plate appearance sample size this season so it’s clear why Hunter wants that bat in the lineup. He’s even willing to spend some time at DH to give Trumbo some right field playing time…

"He spoke with Scioscia about days he could be at designated hitter in order to squeeze Mark Trumbo’s powerful bat in the lineup at right field. “Just trying to get some guys in there,” Hunter said. “We’ll be all right.” *snip*“Trum has the potential to be an everyday first baseman, which obviously we’re not looking for. He has the potential to be an everyday third baseman and an everyday corner outfielder,” Scioscia said. “Absolutely.”"

Or Trumbo could just DH on those days and not butcher the defense. But what do I know? Maybe the Angels are one of the teams buying field/fx data. Haha, good one.

Trumbo was back in the lineup for Thursday’s game at his natural position, designated hitter.